


Crazy Game Of Love

by alex_emsworth



Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-12 03:56:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_emsworth/pseuds/alex_emsworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He went home with his phone number; he knew that it was for emergency, for their Midnight Channel reports – no matter what, he imagined it to be a game at first, and adopted video game vocabulary, imagined them to be secret agents, righteous soldiers in disguise, and the fact that Yuu called him 'partner' didn't help at all – he knew that he was never gonna call him in the middle of the night with his lonely loser nonsense, but it still felt good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crazy Game Of Love

Yosuke had always been second to none; it was pathetic and humiliating, and he wanted to return to Tokyo so much: in Tokyo he at least had friends, even if they were some other pathetic idiots just like him, but they thought him funny, and they hid in arcades all day long, and it's not that hard to be everyone's sweetheart at the arcade. You just have to be damn good at killing virtual enemies, have a good sense of rhythm and enough money to treat your friends every now and then. Yosuke was good at everything _and_ happened to be pretty well-off, so he was quite popular. Not that it gave him particular satisfaction, and not that any of them called or wrote to check up on how he was doing in Inaba, but he found that unexpectedly calming and reassuring. He was pretty tired of them himself, after all, and being alone, he figured, was exactly what he needed.

There were no proper arcades in Inaba, at least none to his liking, and he had no place to hide in anymore. His social position was reduced to a useless loser again, and he asked his father if he had something for him to do at Junes. He wasn't all that eager to help, but it was better than nothing, and it made his father quite delighted with him, and he gave him more money, though Yosuke didn't really know what to spend them on anymore. He still had his music, though, and his handheld brought him enough consolation; that was reassuring, too. He even somehow managed to make friends with Chie, although it wasn't really a friendship or a relationship one would desire, but she lent him games, and they sometimes stayed late together, discussing boyish stuff online, and it was better than nothing.

But then Narukami Yuu appeared, and he suddenly found himself surrounded with friends and lots of things questionably legal and definitely dangerous to do, and Saki died, and he felt sad, depressed, even. He asked Yuu for help, and he agreed, and Yosuke was grateful to all gods he knew for the fact that Yuu was the only one who saw his Shadow, and that he didn't really care. Yuu told him that it was all right, and he didn't tell anyone else a word about it, and Yosuke thought that it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done to him. He was depressed and devastated, and his gratitude to Yuu was so big that he didn't want to let him go.

He went home with his phone number; he knew that it was for emergency, for their Midnight Channel reports – no matter what, he imagined it to be a game at first, and adopted video game vocabulary, imagined them to be secret agents, righteous soldiers in disguise, and the fact that Yuu called him 'partner' didn't help at all – he knew that he was never gonna call him in the middle of the night with his lonely loser nonsense, but it still felt good.

He wanted to be sad about Saki's death, but he didn't really have time to be sad, had so much to do and say and they suddenly laughed at _his jokes,_ not at _him;_ they made fun of him, too, of course, but it was nice this time, he thought, they could do it as long as they didn't walk out on him, and he didn't care if it was about as humiliating as his life in Tokyo had used to be, or if they could think that he was a sucker for attention; he knew he was, but he was too glad that he'd found his place again to notice or care. With a distant disappointment he registered that he couldn't be sad about Saki, no more than he could be sad about a stranger's death, especially after what her Shadow had said to him in the TV world. His newfangled fun life he found to be way too exciting to waste time mourning over a random girl that despised him. He was good at beating the shit out of those monsters, partly because they pissed him off, partly because he'd never felt so good in his life as he did crushing their monstrous skulls or what had they. He imagined himself crushing his own demons, his own problems – a trick so banal it hurt, but it worked as well, and Yosuke didn't give two shits about anything else as long as it did.

He didn't have the slightest idea as to why or when he was not fighting his demons anymore, but was fighting just for the fight, for the feeling that overcame and devoured him, that sensation of pure euphoria; he was ecstatic and he was in frenzy, fighting back to back with Yuu – _Yuu-who-called-him-partner._

He didn't think that he'd ever ask for anything more until he found it in himself to be fascinated enough, alarmed enough in his presence to be overly conscious of the presence of all the others, their constant chatter and their laughter he now found to be irritating. It was Yuu he stayed up late talking to on the phone now, and he somehow always knew what to say, and Yuu laughed at his stupid jokes – _no doubt they're stupid,_ he told himself, lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling with only his laptop's screensaver lighting the room, listening to Yuu laugh and wondering what _he_ was doing now, lying down, like him, or turning mindlessly in his chair, doodling in his textbooks, a habit Yosuke had noticed he had when they were in Yuu's room the other day, and a classmate called him to ask something about the history test they were having soon.

How he happened to remember all the little details he did, remained unknown and drifted in Yosuke's subconscious, and he liked it the way it was until he caught himself staring at Yuu's neck instead of the window, and couldn't avert his gaze, fascinated, entranced, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't, and he stared shamelessly, like a thoughtless dummy, until someone said something, and someone else laughed, and Yosuke realized that he'd probably been asked a question. He couldn't help feeling like he was in a bad movie, mumbled an excuse, his classmates laughed again, and then he was finally allowed to sit back down, his head spinning a little. Yuu tossed him a note with a quite accurate caricature of their teacher, and when the said teacher looked away, he turned to him with a worried look.

'It's nothing,' Yosuke whispered, shaking his head, and lied, 'didn't get enough sleep.'

He forced a laugh, and Yuu shrugged and turned away, not quite satisfied. Yosuke was careful to stare down into his empty copybook till the end of the day and left early, sticking to his story, and that night he _was,_ in fact, deprived of sleep and restless; he didn't want to think about what exactly had happened, but he couldn't help it. With the help of his music and several hours of careful – and useless – attempts to slow his thoughts down he finally found it in himself to hold it all somewhere deep inside, and after a few days the whole incident was forgotten – and he was, of course, the only one to think of it like that.

A couple of weeks later they were in the dungeons, training, without backup, for they'd gone too far, and they had to run for their lives through the ruins; they ran till their lungs all but gave up, and then Yosuke found himself against a cold brick wall, Yuu by his side, Yuu's hand in his, and for a moment it felt so right that he entwined their fingers, earning a ghost of a smile from the panting Yuu beside him, but then came the realization of what he was doing, and he let go of his partner's hand, looking down.

'We should probably head back,' he told him, his voice a little shaken from all the running and his own abrupt and awkward actions, 'the girls are gonna be worried.'

'Sure,' Yuu echoed, and they started moving again, now in silence.

Yosuke let it all slide again, buried under his general excitement of being around Yuu – he purposely avoided the preposition 'with' even in his mind – and told himself that it was all due to the heat of the fight and running, but the image of Yuu's smile in semi-darkness he couldn't get rid of, and before he knew it he was jerking off thinking of it, and of sudden rush of warmth he felt when he held his hand, and then his thoughts drifted to the mental image of Yuu's neck, that delicate line and his collarbones, and how damn good he looked in glasses – except they were not exactly thoughts, just a series of pictures, like a ridiculous, sweet, obscene slideshow; it was almost porn, and Yosuke couldn't ignore it anymore when he came to his senses on the floor, and as the ecstasy of the orgasm slowly faded away, he felt stupid and miserable and lonely as never before.

He didn't know what to think of it, and he didn't know how he could look Yuu in the eye after that, but he couldn't avoid it, and he couldn't avoid _him_ without drawing suspicion either; he tried to put some distance between them, though, but it led to disaster, Chie asking what was wrong and Yuu's looks and stares full of worry and hurt. He had to lie again, lie that he just didn't feel so good and that he was just worried about his grades, but he was never really worried about his grades, and terrible at lying.

He hated himself for it, but he almost wished for someone to fall into the TV world, so that they had something to do. He was ready to agree to anything that could take him away from himself.

When Yuu let himself into his room – without asking, but without any complaints from Yosuke as well – Yosuke felt like he was making a fool of himself again, and he felt somehow naked, his brain frantically searching for answers to unimportant questions, like _had Yuu ever responded to his sick jokes about Kanji with laughter? or did he keep disapprovingly silent? and how he, Yosuke, could be that stupid anyway?_

He wanted to apologize to Kanji, but couldn't imagine a way to do so, and he tried to come up with one as Yuu made himself comfortable on his floor, leaning on the bed, and never let him out of his sight, which wasn't so hard to do anyway, since Hanamura Junior was standing still like a wicked scarecrow, and even more so under Yuu's stare, those intense gray eyes of his burning holes in him and kicking all the air out of his lungs.

He couldn't find the strength to look away, or to form even a single word. His brain slowly shut itself down.

'So,' Yuu said, his voice blank and unreadable, 'what's been bugging you lately?'

Yosuke was surprised when his mouth opened and let out a broken _'nothing'._ He didn't know he still remembered how to speak, not with his mind a tabula fucking rasa. 

He gasped. He didn't feel confused. He kick-started his train of thought again, looked around him, cleared his throat. He lied again, cursing silently at himself, and Yuu sensed it, _of course_ he sensed it, his mouth that twitched ever so slightly betrayed it, but he said nothing, only nodded and smiled, and Yosuke understood it fully for the first time that he was lost.

'Hey, wanna kick my ass to make me feel better, since you came anyway?' He smiled a smile that almost didn't look forced, and fell down beside him, reaching out for his Playstation controllers and offering one to Yuu, who to his great delight nodded again and promised to beat him up fair and square.

They ordered food and played till it was dark outside, and then Yuu left again, leaving Yosuke broken, empty and emotionally worn out, but when he left he did it with a smile not stained with secret messages, and Yosuke was glad and almost convinced. He went to dreamless sleep with a void in his heart that was left by the feeling of a chance gone and an opportunity not taken.

He didn't call him the next day, and the day after that. He felt a desperate longing he couldn't quite place, a yearning, and he was afraid, though what was it that he feared so, he couldn't tell. Maybe it were his own thoughts, vivid and extraordinary, and filled with unwanted desire, and maybe it was the time that was so mercilessly running out. It was all piling up, torturing him and bringing upon him an unspeakable anxiety. And that, he knew, was the most terrifying thing of them all.

He wanted to get close, he wanted to be so damn close to him. He tried to step out of his vicious circle of fear, and he called Yuu on the third night after his visit, the night that succeeded a day full of awkward glances and lingering, unfinished, shy motions when he held his hand too close to Yuu's neck or his shoulder, feeling his skin brush against his partner's when he passed him notes in class, only the fabric of Yuu's shirt between them.

He remembered the faint scent of Yuu's skin that he caught when he leaned in to whisper a quick witticism into his ear when nobody was looking, and his soft chuckles that he threw at him in response. He didn't have time to wonder why or when exactly all those actions and details took on a sexual meaning, for Yuu answered almost instantly, which all but caught Yosuke off guard, bringing joy and more questions he diligently ignored.

'Hey, partner,' he started, but couldn't bring out the _'we need to talk'_ he had rehearsed. 'I miss you,' he said instead, and waited for a response _('Yeah, me too; what're you up to tonight?'),_ and searched for anything in it that hinted at recognition or understanding, but there was none, although through his bewilderment Yosuke heard eagerness that mirrored his own, and it gave him hope.

A couple of hours later he ended their conversation with a _'see you tomorrow'_ and a _'goodnight'_ that had a bit more affection in it than he meant it to, but he didn't really care, and it were doubt and confusion that occupied his heart that night. They shared place with something much more immense and not yet shaped.

It felt wrong to masturbate, but his oblivious teenage lust was stronger than him.

–––

It was two months till Yuu's departure that they first kissed; it was clumsy and awkward and made no sense, came out of the blue when Yosuke was muttering something along the lines of _stop it just be silent for a moment I'm going through a crisis here and you're not helping_ and Yuu finally lost all that was left of his patience and pressed his lips against Yosuke's, who had never kissed before, which showed, and Yuu was presented with a view of a very confused Yosuke with his eyes wide open and a bit clouded, blushing like a girl. It made Yuu laugh and reach out to mess up Yosuke's hair even more. He liked what he saw.

Their first sex was like that, too, not entirely pleasant and embarrassing for Yosuke, who wouldn't let himself relax at first, not at all, though he was desperate to. He clutched at Yuu, brought him close, cried out his name, couldn't bring himself to look him in the eye. They tried again, and enjoyed it more, and Yosuke made sure that he did his best to please his partner (the word sounded so different now). He wanted to pour himself out and offer Yuu anything he would ask for. It felt like a going-away present, and he didn't want to let him go.

He almost snapped at Rise when she clung to Yuu – his Yuu – and said all those nonsense about love, but he knew that he couldn't, and stared at Yuu, met his apologizing gaze with one aflame with jealousy, bearing it in his mind that he was in no position to complain, and Yuu had nothing to apologize for.

When Yuu left, he left with a piece of his soul – Yosuke was unable to find other words for it; he was broken and alone again, and as he walked down Inaba's streets they felt more alien than ever. They never promised anything to each other, and he felt naive and forsaken, for he waited and waited again for Yuu to call or text him. He told himself that he didn't expect Yuu to be faithful to him, especially in a big town, but he slowly realized that he, in fact, did.

It was not the only thing he tried to convince himself to believe in, and he told himself that he certainly was not the brightest crayon in the box, that someone like Yuu would never be interested in him for too long, would never dream to return to Inaba for him, but in fact he just looked for a reason to hate him, to un-love him so it was easier to forget it all and move on, but that, too, was out of question.

He conversed with Kanji. He was not careful enough and almost spilled it all out to Chie one night. He was heartbroken, he understood, which made no sense, for Yuu and he talked every other night and texted each other every day; that made his life slightly better, for it reassured him that Yuu was still there with him, and talked about visiting soon, talked about how he missed him, and worse at the same time, for it reminded him of the enormous distance that lay between them.

Their adventures in the TV world he remembered like a dream now.

Yuu paid them a visit only about six month later; he wore a slightly different haircut, looked stunning and swaggered as he went, smiled curiously and seemingly shared Yosuke's anticipation and lack of patience. The whole team strolled along the bank, and when the two of them fell behind everyone else Yosuke stole a kiss that promised so much more.

He intended to keep him all to himself the following day, but it was filled with unwanted presence and meaningless blabbering of all the others again, and it came to an end only when the door to Yosuke's room closed behind them. 

They shared a few moments' hesitation, staring at each other shamelessly and with desire, taking in each other's features. They had so much to tell each other after all that time despite their daily conversations, but when Yosuke took a few unsteady steps in his partner's direction, all he could manage to breathe out was an uneven _I missed you so, so much,_ and even that line was cut short when their lips met, and then they collapsed onto the floor in a synchronized motion, as if they moved in the rhythm of the music that Yosuke turned on on purpose, but the truth was that neither of them could hear a beat over their frantic breathing. 

They spent no time talking, and he let Yuu take hold of him, push him to the floor; he closed his eyes as he felt Yuu's soft lips wander down his neck, planting here and there soft kisses that were quickly replaced with passionate, fervent ones, the heat of his breathing sent shivers down his spine and made him slightly arch his back, asking for more. It was extraordinary and almost divine, and unlike anything that ever happened between them, for that half a year they didn't touch seemed to shape them and bring out all that remained unspoken and unrealized, and it was all spilling out now as they conversed without words.

Yosuke struggled with the buttons of Yuu's shirt, but he wouldn't let him, pinned him down again, menace and lust in his eyes, and Yosuke gave in again, sensing nothing, remembering nothing but pleasure and ecstasy. 

He woke up with bruises all over his body, curled up naked next to Yuu, his hands embracing him gently; he later discovered that it was a bit too difficult to walk properly, too, and threw angry glances at his partner, who only smiled mischievously.

That, and what he said to him before leaving again ( _'Would you come live with me the coming autumn?',_ which made Yosuke stare in disbelief at him, and to which he said yes) was proof of commitment enough for him, and when he waved at the train that took Narukami Yuu away from him again, he felt all his fears replaced with happiness and a brand new type of anticipation.

He felt loved and admitted it for the first time that he was, too, head over heels in love, and he knew that he was never going to be alone again.


End file.
